More than 50,000 people protested a disputed railway project in southwestern Germany on Friday, a day after scores of demonstrators were injured when police broke up a rally there.
A spokesman for the organizers, Matthias von Hermann, said more than 100,000 people attended the rally in Stuttgart, protesting the 4.1 billion euro (US$5.5 billion) railway project, which foresees moving the city’s station underground.
“This is the biggest protest against the planned construction we ever had,” he said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
However, police spokesman Stefan Keilbach said about 50,000 people were marching through downtown Stuttgart — a wealthy city of 600,000 inhabitants. There were no clashes or arrests, he said.
On Thursday, about 1,000 police officers used water cannons and pepper spray to break up a rally there, leaving 130 people injured, 16 of whom had to be hospitalized, and 26 demonstrators were temporarily detained, police said.
The eruption of violence shocked the country and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the large number of injuries “saddening,” her spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
Merkel strongly endorses the right to peaceful protests, but said the project has been democratically approved and must go forward, he added. Merkel said earlier this week its completion is now a question of credibility for Germany as a whole.
Protesters condemned Thursday’s violence, carrying banners saying “Shame on You” and calling for Baden-Wurttemburg -Minister-President Stefan Mappus’ resignation.
One protester told German news agency DAPD she had not participated in a demonstration for at least 20 years but that it’s now time for citizens to change the way politics works.
The recent protests, which have drawn people of all ages and social levels, threaten to halt the construction of Stuttgart 21, which is one of the country’s major infrastructure projects.
Proponents of the plan to move the station underground say the freed-up space in the city’s crowded center can be used for new apartments and business buildings, and new tracks for faster connections will improve southern Germany’s railway network.
However, critics — including several environment groups and The Greens party — say new cost overruns are likely, possibly putting the final price tag up to 10 billion euros, making riding German trains more expensive but not significantly faster.
The Social Democratic Party, the main opposition party, has called for a referendum to decide on the future of Stuttgart 21.
The governing Christian Democrat Union (CDU) rejects that idea — but the upcoming election in Baden-Wurttemberg state, the area around Stuttgart, is likely to turn into a referendum on the matter.
The latest polls indicated Merkel’s party could lose its majority in the state for the first time in decades.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the